Giving an international level facelift…

JCDecaux has made New Delhi look better than ever. The 197 operational bus queue shelters in NDMC area have given an international look-and-feel to the city. After redefining New Delhi, they are all set to recreate the magic at Mumbai, Bangalore…and other Indian cities. In tête-à-tête with S&G Pramod Bhandula, MD, JCDecaux Advertising India Pvt Ltd shared his views. Excerpts.

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Delhi is changing and it’s changing for better. The city adorned with worldclass street furniture is looking really nice. And behind this facelift, there is just one name… JCDecaux. Since the company’s venture into the Indian market in 2006, they have taken the outof- home (OOH) advertising industry by storm. JCDecaux, Europe’s no 1 outdoor advertising company and the no 2 worldwide, has marked its entry in India, by tying up with New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) for around 200 bus queue shelters. And company takes pride in successfully completing 197 shelters by the end of 2007. “When we started our project, we did face some bottlenecks, but with our researched approach, we finished our project in time,” shared Bhandula.

Under the agreement, JCDecaux and NDMC are working together for these shelters, which are installed in NDMC area. The complete maintenance of these shelters are being handled by JCDecaux. Throwing more light on the maintenance of these shelters, Bhandula elaborated, “Everyday our team visits each and every shelter for daily maintenance and cleansing. We have a team of 22 well-trained professionals, who take care of every minute detail. Our six wellequipped service vans are always on move to mend any damage to these shelters. The water that we are using to wash and clean these shelters is RO purified. We are very careful about the maintenance of our shelters. Other interesting and little known fact about these shelters is that these bus-q-shelters are equipped with rain water harvesting system. So besides beautifying the city, we are also contributing to social cause. Our team works in a real holistic manner, they can even mount/replace the advertising setup in just 4½ minutes.”

All these shelters are fully occupied with advertising campaigns and actually they are attracting great attention of media planners. And most of their advertisers are biggies, which includes HT Media, TOI, Airtel, La’oreal, etc. As per Bhandula, JCDecaux’s USP is their advertising design and style, which is constant all over the world. “These shelters have one front panel with two-sided standee. The backside of the central board is for social message or city information. Answering to a question, Bhandula said, “In India, the concept of multiple advertising within one site has not yet started. So, we have one advertiser for every shelter. But we are trying to bring in the concept of multiple advertising to Indian market as well.”

After receiving positive feedbacks for various campaigns, now JCDecaux is offering innovations also. Recently, Adidas and Mother Dairy ran innovative campaigns, which displayed the original products at the site.

Like in most of other countries, JCDecaux is promoting the trend of weekly advertising campaigns. “We recommend better advertising through more shelters than days. A weekly campaign on 20 shelters will definitely have better brand recall. And it costs around Rs 6.5 lakhs, which is quite reasonable in today’s world, considering the current media trends.”

The outstanding quality and unmatched designs have provided the required fillip to the company. And while talking about the quality standards, Bhandula explained, “We have a set of guidelines for us and our clients, in terms of quality. All the creative campaigns are being printed only on “Yupo” synthetic paper, its technical superiority, its unique attributes and the many applications for industry and design make it the only choice and the best choice. And we recommend only UV printing. In Delhi, we have identified six such printers, who have our approvals.

Talking about the company growth, he explained the recent project of MMRD, Mumbai, wherein they will be installing 120 bus shelters in Bandra – Kurla centre. The company is also excited about Bangalore’s new airport for which they have acquired the total advertising rights. “We already have around 145 airports across 34 countries. We are number one in the world, in this field,” added Bhandula.

Pramod Bhandula in cheerful expression…

“Winning the advertising contract for Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) has further strengthened our position in the Indian market. This contract, for a period of seven years, was secured following a tender process. We are BIAL’s exclusive partner for all advertising options inside and outside the airport, including the approach from city to road to the airport,” concluded Bhandula.
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